Revamping

A game you play (or played) is about to (or just did) have a major update/expansion. There will be an overhaul of core systems and/or your main class. Is your reaction:

“Awesome, let’s see all my new toys!” or

“Oh Lord, I have to learn how to play all over again?”?

Congratulations, you now have a decision criterion for whether you should spend that money. Please run through this exercise before you resubscribe, rather than having that reaction while you stare at a row of skill icons.

Seriously though. We just went through this if Rift. They revamped every single soul requiring everybody to pretty much relearn their class again.

I have a couple of level 50 characters that literally have a dozen new skills. That is digestible when you get them one or two at a time as you level up, but that sort of radical change is a bit much to ask.

Since I otherwise really enjoy the game, I will lump it and relearn my class on at least one character, but I am annoyed that it had to be such a drastic change up.

However, your advice seems to be, as I noted above, to simply unsubscribe before I sigh in despair at all those new skills.

At best, that seems to be putting the situation into a very superficial two dimensional continuum.

Yes, this one-factor heuristic does not work without a strong reaction. I do find that the reaction in question incorporates other factors into a summary output, rather than being based on the single factor.

My reaction is almost invariably of the second type. I’ve always believed that, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Just once I’d like to see an MMO company practice evolutionary design rather than revolutionary design.